#606: 2017.07.09 [pierre henry]

it was with great sadness that we learned this past week of the passing of pierre henry, pioneer of musique concrète, found sound, and experimental composition, at the age of 89. henry has of course played a huge role in the history and development of all electronic, experimental, and acousmatic music, and we in the field recording community owe him a special debt. we wouldn’t be here without him. he has had a huge influence personally on my work and my ears, and i count myself very lucky to have arrived in france during my formative years and to have had the chance to discover and explore his work, and count myself even luckier to have been able to witness his live performances on more than one occasion. i was even able to meet him once, very briefly, a very memorable moment for me, and undoubtedly instantly forgettable for him. the 20 years for which i have been listening to his music feels shamefully short against the almost 70 years for which he was making it. we here at framework felt we had no alternative but to make the tiniest of possible gestures in dedicating an edition of our show to him and his immense body of immense work, a tip of the ‘phones, if you will, to a great artist. rest in peace, pierre, and thanks.

a note about the image accompanying this edition: on hearing of henry’s death, and resolving to make this tribute edition of framework, i approached long-time regular contributor sebastiane hegarty to ask him if he would be ready and able to produce a special framework introduction for the occasion on short notice – his reply made it very apparent that i had approached the right person: “serendipitously i recorded a squeaky door at work yesterday!” his intro, in my view, is very much about tribute and memory; it makes use of the aforementioned squeaky door in direct tribute to henry’s 1963 variations pour une porte et un soupir, and also the voice of his mother, originally recorded for a framework introduction back in 2007(!). the rest of the piece is very literally the introduction text made audible – as seen in the image, sebastiane printed the text, diced it up into its individual letters, and then “dropp[ed] the framework intro on a cheap guitar.” i am very grateful for his contribution, and for his wonderful photo.

in his own words: “this variation includes recordings of doors and elevators made on the 5th july and other recordings made on the 6th july, using a cheap guitar played by a ping-pong ball and a ‘sigh’ of wind. a recording of my mother reading the framework intro in 2007 is also played through the guitar (she died in 2011). The variation concludes with the cut up letters of the framework statement being dropped onto the guitar strings.”

.information about pierre henry and his work is easy to find online, but i did mention in the program that i would provide some links, so here are a few basic places where you can learn more about the man and his body of work: